Macross Delta Episode 6 : The Spartan Treatment

When we left Performance Autist Immelman he was getting reminded he was nothing by a competent pilot. We return to them to find Immelman being reminded he is nothing by a competent pilot. Messer is in the process of debriefing the rest of Delta Squadron. It goes something like this.

Liutenant Chuck, you need to manage ship power better.
Mirage, you're neglecting your right side. Arad is having to bail you out.
Immelman, Fuck You.

Actually, he just doesn't bother giving advice to the shlub and simply dismisses the crew. The sentiment, however, is the same. This is made clear when Immelman asks what the point of Messer calling him over is, to which Messer replies "Why waste my time? You're not even worth talking to." Which I can translate as 'The point is Fuck You.' Which I again sympathize with immensely.

Still he does relent and foolishly attempts to advise Immleman. Basically insisting they stop attempting to merely disable the fighters piloted by mind-controlled roidragers. When he advises the same thing to Mirage, Immelman complains that Arad and Luitenant MerChuck do the same thing to which Messer basically replies 'Those two are good enough to pull it off without dying.'

Sadly, Messer still fails to realize he's in an anime despite... Well, everything Immelman-related.

Messer informs Purple Hair Space Elf and Immelman that if they keep this up, they will die. Immelman gets pissy about this but Mirage asks for elaboration. Her problem, Messer implies, is that her flying is as precise as it is predictable and it is extremely precise. Improbably, he implies she could learn something from Immelman, which seems a bit mean. Still, it is true...

The Merkin maneuver is as unpredictable as it is absurd, and it is extremely absurd.

After the the usual baffling intro sequence we find ourselves in another briefing in which Ernest is informing us that since the last episode Windermere has annexed three planets in total now. They have, in fact, won every battle thus far.

Ernest of course is an optimist. Else he HAS come to the realization he is in an Anime.

Meanwhile Musical Girl Kaname wants to know if the Spacy- the spaciest of space forces- intends to send reinforcements. Arad replies that this is unlikely as this is taking place in fringe, backwater planets the Spacy can't be arsed to care about.

Which, with everything else- not the least of which is Arad's own attitude- is giving me a very strange impression of how the Spacy heirarchy works. The higher rank you are, the less of a shit you give.

I mean, here we have a nation declaring war on the Spacy and enjoying gratuitous success by virtue of a poorly understood mind-control weapon that turns Spacy pilots into expendable grunts- but working for the enemy- and the Spacy is apparently going to go. 'Meh, shit happens.'

Hold on let me look into this...

Right, here we go. The Supreme Commander of the Spacy is one Niles Badgerson, in his 30th space-year of command from his room in the hospice where he has been in a self-drug-induced coma for the last four and a half space-decades, noted for his extraordinarily rapid advancement through the ranks.

Rumor has it he's aiming for Space-Presidency of the NUG.

This also reveals why Arad likes Immelman, he knows Spacy Leadership Potential when he sees it.

But enough digression.

We cut now to Manic Pixie Freyja, who is late for something. Enroute to whatever it is she is stopped by the sound of Mikumo singing out on a balcony at night, wearing clothes even.

The stars are out though, perhaps Pixie is just a touch too early.

Anyhow, because this is insufficiently suspect Mikumo notes she is singing Prince Princess Heinrich's Roidrage song because she can't get it out of her head, and is intrigued with how the effeminate lad's voice shines with life, unlike Pixie's.

Oh no, Pixie, Mikumo might look to replace you with a new gimp.

The implication is either so troubling that Pixie forgets what she was running late for, or this is what she was late for- which should probably be troubling.

We cut away from whatever Mikumo plans to do with Pixie to the restaurant area of Ragyumyum, which is very busy. War is bringing in all manner of customers. As one of the employees of Good Guy Private Military Corporation CHAOS notes, nothing boosts the economy like a war or two. Another notes that they have indeed seen a large number of grim businessmen about as some such businessmen grimly shake hands with people outside of the restaurant.

Says brain parasite girl.

Replies unusually self aware coworker, which perhaps also explains they are also the resident binge drinker.

Cut now to Shlub Immelman, MerChuck, the Implied Lesbian Musical Girls and Pixie who are collectively pitying themselves and/or eachother. Why?

A war has broken out, people are getting their free will stolen from them and killed but the REAL crime is how the only person taking it all seriously doesn't like meeeeee.

But wait, where's Pixie?

Yes, that's right, Messer hurt her fee fees so badly with a look that she has lost all control of her bowels in the corner. Despite the fact that said incident occurred last episode and at least a week ago real-time.

This is why children regardless of species have no place in war.

To be fair, it's not impossible she's just suffering from an unrelated and poorly timed case of space-food-poisoning.

The Pink Haired Musical Girl then asks where Mirage is. Turns out the purple-haired space elf is the only one of these people who has responded to a professional's critique of their flying by getting some practice in a simulator.

Meanwhile Pixie takes the opportunity to complain about Slave-Driver Mikumo, but she respects Mikumo because she looks so cool on stage. (she also seems to have stopped venting purple gas)

This prompts Immelman to grudgingly admit he admires Messer's flying chops.

MerChuck notes that Messer isn't called the Grim Reaper by someone, somewhere, for nothing and that he may in fact technically be a better pilot than Arad. The Pink Haired Musical Girl then notes that Messer takes very good care of his jetmech, unlike Immelman- who wrecks his every time he takes it out for a spin.

All of this talk excites her marketable implied-lesbian partner to impromptu pokage of her own highly marketable implied lesbian personage.

Much to MerChuck's arousal, fortunately as he's Merperson and not Japanese no blood fired out of his nostrils.

Anhow, Immelman realizes that Messer actually being good at what he does bothers him, so he'll try to be better than him. Pixie simultaenously resolves to match Mad Mikumo.

This prompts the others to ask if they were siblings separated at birth.

Because a romance between this drifter and this 14 year old girl isn't sufficiently pervy, how about we make her his adopted little sister too?

Fortunately we cut again to Arad and Messer.

Arad asks, apparently ignorant of what the Spartan Treatment was.

I take that 'fortunately' back. Messer agrees that he is, because he doesn't want them to die. Arad asks him to be careful not to break them in the process.

So, maybe Arad DOES know what the Spartan Treatment is and Messer doesn't. Which is good, because otherwise Messer would have just admitted to both personally training and taking Immelman as his lover in the very carnal sense, from an unacceptably young age by force if necessary.

Messer isn't doing that.

Mikumo, on the other hand...

Insert flashback effects and ominous music here.

Anyhow, Messer goes on to show his complete disregard for his military career by preparing for the military action to take place tomorrow, that bastard.

Meanwhile on Planet Airberl ruins are glowing and Prince Princess has sung himself to collapse. Royal Babysitter Roid advises Prince Princess to refrain from singing, only to have Prince Princess's brother turn up to say such refrainment cannot be afforded.

Apparently Spacy Scouts have been seen in the... Ugh.

'If they take the Starwind sector then they might take the Windstar sector and then the solarwind and windsolar sectors, we need your wind to wind the wind wind. Oh and if you die in the process I get to be the new King Wind. Wait, I mean, WIND WIND WIND WIND.'

He urges Prince Princess to grant them the- you know what, replacing all of their dialogue with wind repeated indefinitely really doesn't change much. I'm doing that for the rest of this.

In any case Prince Princess is moved by his brothers wind and winds wind about wind over the gentle objection of Roid wind. So he says wind wind duty wind and his brother says wind vow wind.

Ok, back to Mirage the Purple Haired Space Elf.

This is in her head, words overhead.

She's presently wallowing in self-loathing fueled by her insecurities over failing to live up to the legendary piloting skilz of her grandparents. This scene is of grave importance as it explains why she is doomed to eventually covet the affection of a loathsome little shit like Immelman, who is precisely the sort of asshole sure to make her suffer like she feels she deserves.

Anyhow, the voices in her head are interrupted by no less than that jackass shlub, who on seeing that she is already down has words of encouragement for her.

And now they're...

Will they survive the battle of IoniDETH?! Yes. Sadly.

Here on out it's mostly space battle, I'm not going to be screenshotting the lot of that.

Presently the battle is almost entirely between Spacy expendable grunts and Spacy expendable grunts whose minds are being controlled by roidrage. No one will know any of their names, because they are just that expendable.

Spacy pilots are winning the battle, but that doesn't mean it's going well because it's the enslaved Spacy pilots.

Fortunately having noticed the Var Outbreak, Musical Girl Squad is soon to deploy! Everyone is getting their jetmechs fitted for space battle. Metal things are whirring and technical jargon is babbled. Token military terms are used. Delta Squad will attack point Echo while the 30% of Spacy Units not presently mind-controlled defend point whatever.

Delta pilots 1 through 5 are informed by Messer that this is the first space battle for those pilots, because apparently they wouldn't have known otherwise. Which, given who one of those pilots is, may be the case. He warns them a space battle is a different beast and that they must not run out of propellant.

So, we know right off the bat at least one of them is sure to run out of propellant.

Immelman encourages Mirage to 'show the Grim Reaper what we're made of'. Mirage replies 'you can count on me'. Messer...

Messer knows better.

And with Musical Girl Squad beginning their performance in a glass pyramid on the SpaceAircraftCarrier with the usual babble about Music being all the really nice things, they launch into some English lyrics (just the four words below) and battle is joined.

Hot lasermissile love coming right at your face, just like that.

Today's suddenly necessary cure for Roidrage involves projecting the faces of Musical Girl Squad onto random asteroids, so there's an awful lot of that.

If you can only get a restraining order against ONE member of Musical Girl Squad...

Anyhow most of what happens now is space battle j-pop. Mirage, Immelman and whatnot have predictably ignored all of Messer's advice but between the two of themselves aren't killed. Messer and the White Knight of Windermere are dueling.

"Wind to wind the wind" says the Wind Wind of Wind.

Immelman wants to catch up with Messer and the Wind Wind of Wind, but thus far hasn't spontaneously become that good yet and so is instead narrowly able to avoid crashing while being suddenly attacked by the Windermeercat twins.

"Wind winding... with the wind!" say the Winds. 

Musical Girl Squad meanwhile has started to have an effect. Spacy Pilots are getting their brains turned back into their normal blue and thus cured. This prompts Booger to take offense and say "Wind, Wind, wind wind wind wind!" to the Meercat twins who reply "Wind wind wind." and then they ignore the rest of the fight to attack Musical Girl Squad.

They effortlessly kill the expendable nameless Spacy grunts in charge of protecting Musical Girl Squad, allowing Booger to personally bang on the Musical Girl Squad entirely transparent enclosure and say 'Wind wind, Wind!" at Pixie. Pixie replies 'Traitor?'

At this point Booger takes a jetmech foot to his jetmech's face as Immelman turns up to save Pixie. Also the rest of Musical Girl Squad.

Meanwhile, Blowhard Knight Master Hermann is giving a pep talk to one Lieutenant Uhroh. He offers to corner one of Delta Squad so that Uhroh can shoot them down and thus earn his first kill. Uhroh agrees, invoking his rune to guide them and- most miraculously- neither of them have mentioned wind once.

 The member of Delta Squad in question is none other than Mirage.

So very fortunately for Mirage, the incredibly fiery and vain Booger has elected not to fight and has in fact just fucked off, along with the Twins leaving Immelman conveniently free to hurry to her rescue now.

But wait, there's a problem, he's being prevented from getting close enough to try his usual battle tactic of ignoring his guns in favor of playing rock-em-sock-em-jetmech. By what?

What a shock.

So, he's going to have to actually use one of those many many guns on his custom-modified war machine.

So he does. Despite hating guns and almost certainly never practicing with them in any meaningful way his aim is true and Uhroh's jetmech is destroyed just before he succeeds in killing Mirage. Uhroh ejects from the jetmech, but Uh-Oh Uhroh is caught in the explosion of the vehicle.

This probably happened to Uhroh because he didn't say 'Wind' enough. Very un-winderemerely.

Anyhow with both Mirage and Immelman now floating in space, apparently incapable of movement death is certain to come. Perhaps from Master Hermann, who just saw his favorite rookie blown to bits.

Oh, no, Roid calls the Wind Wind of Wind to inform him that Prince Princess is recalling the Knights. The Wind Wind of Wind is understandably upset, given that the battle has gone entirely their way and victory would just be a matter of mopping up- but he dare not defy the will of Prince Princess... so the Blowhard Knights depart.

Now it's Feel Bad for Immelman Having to Kill a Guy Time.

Oh, and Mikumo berates Pixie for flinching at being called a traitor before rambling oddly about voices echoing across the galaxy and then asking her questions like 'Why do you stand on stage? What is your purpose? What feelings do you put into your singing?' and then to think through those questions once more.

And then when Pixie has answers, she can give them to Mikumo- who is desperately trying to deflect that they have no real idea what they are doing, being utterly insane as they are.

Seems a bit hypocritical to me, but if Mikumo is doing anything right it's probably The Spartan Treatment. Which is, again, so very wrong.

After this it's time for more pity for Immelman. Mirage personally chips in to help buck up the borderline autistic manchild who in a pinch ultimately decided to do his job rather than let her die.

Her words ring true and Immelman realizes that since everyone around him is risking their lives, he can accept ghosting a sucka.

Pixie, eavesdropping on their conversation from a hiding spot, seems less certain.

Finally, we at the end as the Wind Wind of Wind takes his brother Prince Princess to see a sparking crater on Windermere, which is very sad for them both for some reason. Miraculously, they both manage to avoid saying Wind.

In any case, let's end on a superior Musical Girl Squad.

I guess. Well, they're all clearly more stable than Mikumo at least.